BIS' payments committee CPSS renamed CPMI

    The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS), one of the standing committees hosted by Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS, has been renamed as the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) to better reflect its actual activities, according to the BIS.
    The origins of CPSS date back to the late 1970 when central banks intensified their cooperation in international payment and settlement systems following the June 26, 1974 failure of the small German bank Bankhaus Herstatt.
    German regulators liquidated Herstatt but on that same morning banks in Frankfurt released payments in German marks to Herstatt in exchange for U.S. dollars that were scheduled to be delivered later that day in New York. But Herstatt's counter parties in New York never received their funds because of the time-zone difference. Herstatt was closed by regulators before dollar payments could be made during U.S. business hours.
    Central bankers then began work on how to avoid this so-called settlement risk in foreign exchange trading and in 1990 CPSS was set up as a permanent body to develop global standards. CPSS helped lead to the introduction of Real Time Gross Settlement Systems (RTGS), which ensure that payments between different banks in different time-zones are executed in real-time and are final.

The History of the Personal Check [Infographic]

The below infographic details the history of the personal check (also known as cheque), an instrument which has been a pivotal component of historical and modern banking, and the payment system.  While checks have become marginalized and even phased out in some countries, in preference of electronic payment systems, checks and related financial instruments (e.g. letters of credit, bills of exchange, bearer bonds, etc) remain an important tool in financial transactions and arrangements.  Central banks often have oversight of the payment system, particularly where the central bank has banking system regulatory responsibilities, and may play a role in regulating the form and function of checks, and the clearing and processing of check based payments.